Re: Sorting EBCDIC

"CH" == Chris Hamel <hamelcd@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

CH> Here's the rub: the source system is an IBM mainframe that is
CH> assigning the values backwards in EBCDIC. Our system is on an AIX
CH> server.

CH> So, if I'm looking at four orders:
CH> 1 2 A B

CH> The mainframe has created them in this order:
CH> 2 1 A B

CH> But a descending sort in Perl will put them in this order:
CH> B A 2 1

CH> I looked in the Perl documentation, which basically suggests that I: 1)
CH> get over it (not possible) 2) sort in only one system (not possible) or
CH> 3) convert, sort, re-convert. My only option of these is the third.

CH> I'm thinking of something like this:

CH> tr/0-9A-Za-z/a-zA-Z0-9/ for @list_of_orders;
CH> @list_of_orders = sort @list_of_orders;
CH> tr/a-zA-Z0-9/0-9A-Za-z/ for @list_of_orders;

use the unix dd utility to do ebcdic/ascii conversion. you ain't gonna
easily get it right with tr///. there might be a cpan module for this
too and should be easy to find by searching for ebcdic

CH> This is conceptual, as the actual code will obviously have a lot
CH> more gunk around it and resides in several programs. Am I on
CH> track? Are there better ways? Has anyone done this before? Am I
CH> creating efficiency problems that I'm not aware of? Is there a
CH> module in CPAN that does this better that has managed to hide from
CH> my searches?

look at Sort::Maker which may save you a lot of work. you can describe
your sort keys and forward/reverse, do conversion one time (it will
return the sorted original data) and you could possibly do the
conversion on the fly if you find a module for it.

CH> I am still in the conceptual design phase but am looking for any
CH> feedback. We have several months before we have to do this, but before
CH> I go off and start changing dozens of programs I wanted to see if
CH> anyone had any feedback.

doesn't sound like too complex a project. first get a proper
specification of your sort keys (including any conversion). then code it
up in sort::maker and you should be done.

uri

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